“How do you take pills from a strip?” It is pretty obvious that you take it in a sequential manner for daily use, the sequence might be horizontal or vertical. Similarly, the mechanism which hard drive follows to store its data is logical & sequential.
Let us take an example of a graph strip which has many square boxes on it, and each box has a capacity to hold 1KB of data. So, it needs 1000 such boxes to hold 1MB of data. With this simple concept, let us try to understand how files get saved in a hard disk.
Let us assume that your hard disk is fresh, if you create a word file of 1 MB and store it in your hard disk then, it will occupy the first vertical grid in the hard disk. The next file you create is an excel sheet, which is of 2 MB then the hard disk will store it in the first available space, and that happens to be the box next to the last box of the word document.
Now, if you make certain changes to your word document and shrink it to a size of 600 KB then, there would be 400 KB of free space available between the word file and the excel file. Suppose, a new image file of 1 MB is to be written in your hard drive, how would it store in hard drive? As per the logic behind storage mechanism, it will search for the first available space which is the 400 KB space, so the image file would be segregated into 400 KB & 600 KB. The first 400 KB of file will be stored in the space between word file and excel file, rest of 600 KB file would be stored in the next available space.
Eventually, the files get segregated and store in hard drive. While a user requests for a particular file, it will search for all the segregations of the files, put them together and present it to the user. This is the reason behind the gradual slow performance of the hard dive.
De-fragmentation makes retrieval of file easier
Retrieving the data is always feasible if it is stored in a continuous manner, which is why you should use “de-fragment” utility. De-fragmentation is a process which brings the fragmented pieces of files together in the same location, making it easier for the hard drive to retrieve files and save time.
You cannot do anything about the way hard drive writes the data into it, but you can make use of De-fragment utility to increase its performance.
-Authored by Jian james. Jian James has been handling Computer related issues and has come up with several new and improved techniques resulting in hassle-free “user/computer” relationship. Do visit MyTechGurus for further assistance or any Tech Support related issues. MyTechGurus is an Independent Remote Technical Support company specializing in Technical Support, Customer Support, IT Infrastructure Management, Remote IT Services, Data Backup & Retrieval. Mytechgurus has more than 500,000 customers with customer bases in the USA, Canada,  the UK and Australia.